This article profiles the Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Support Technician exam (MCITP 70-685), for IT professionals who support end users running the Windows 7 operating system in a corporate environment. Pearson IT Certification provides a variety of exam preparation tools to help our customers in their quest for certification. As part of our service to you, we have developed this Exam Profile series. Each profile is developed based on the testing experience of one of our trainers or authors. You won’t get exact questions or answers, but you will get a real feel for the exam. Each profile describes question forms, trouble spots, hints for exam preparation, and recommendations for additional study resources. Find out what you can expect to see on the exam and how you can better prepare for it.

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The 70-685 exam is meant to be taken by those who will be supporting end users running the Windows 7 operating system in a corporate environment. You need to have experience using applications that are included with the Windows 7 operating system, such as productivity applications used in a corporate environment and Microsoft Office applications. You should be able to resolve operating system issues by telephone, email, connecting to an end user's system remotely, or by visiting an end user's desktop. You will also have to have a working knowledge of operating in an Active Directory domain environment.

After you pass Exam 70-685: Pro: Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Support Technician, you complete the requirements for the Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): Enterprise Desktop Support Technician 7 certification.

Exam Details

Number of Questions: Approximately 47 questions (Since Microsoft does not publish this information, the number of exam questions may change without notice.)

Type of Questions: This test format is multiple choice and multiple choice multiple answer. You may also see several scenario questions.

Passing Score: 700

This passing score does not mean that you must answer 70 percent of the items correctly in order to pass the exam. The actual percentage varies from exam to exam and may be more or less than 70 percent. There is no penalty for guessing. No points are deducted for incorrect answers. If a question specifies that you must choose multiple correct answers, you must choose the exact number of correct answers specified in the question in order to earn a point for that item. Some of the questions on the exam may not count toward the calculation of your score. Microsoft will often throw a question in that is meant to gather data that will help them improve the exam.

Time Limit: 120 minutes

How to Register: Prometric.com

Trouble Spots

As with any exam, it will vary from person to person as to what is deemed to be difficult. Be sure you are familiar with each of the topics in the exam objectives listed below.

If a user is having trouble logging onto their PC in a network environment, there are several things that should be checked. Always start at the physical layer and check for unplugged network cables, lights flashing on the network interface card, network drops that are inactive or non-functional. If dealing with a laptop, make sure that the wireless is activated as many laptops have a physical button to turn wireless on/off. Once you have determined it is not a physical problem, make sure the user has typed their name and password correctly – yes this happens more often that you would think. If you are in an environment with multiple domains, make sure the correct domain is chosen. It is also possible that the user’s account has been locked by a group policy for too many failed login attempts.

Group Policy helps administrators choose what users can and cannot do on a computer system. You can use Group Policy to enforce a password complexity policy, to prevent unauthenticated users from connecting to a network share, to block access to the Windows Task Manager or to restrict access to certain folders.

To prevent documents from being viewed in Content View, you can set Group Policy to enable the Turn off display of snippets in Content view mode setting.

Nslookup.exe is a command-line administrative tool for testing and troubleshooting DNS servers. This tool is installed along with the TCP/IP protocol through Control Panel. In order to use Nslookup, at least one DNS server must be specified when you run the ipconfig /all command from a command prompt.

Your DNS cache stores the IP address locations of web pages you have recently viewed. If the location of the page changes before the entry in your DNS cache is updated, you will be unable to access the page. When encountering a high number of HTML 404 error codes, you may need to flush your DNS cache. Once you clear your DNS cache, your computer will query nameservers for the new DNS information you require. To flush the DNS cache, run a command prompt and type ipconfig / flushdns.